India ranks 60th in Inclusive Development Index

India ranked 60th among the 79 developing countries in 2017 Inclusive Development Index (IDI) released in World Economic Forum’s (WEF) ‘Inclusive Growth and Development Report’.
The index is based on 12 performance indicators and countries are ranked on IDI scores based on a scale of 1-7. It has three pillars Growth and Development, Inclusion and Intergenerational Equity, and Sustainability in order to provide a more complete measure of economic development than GDP growth alone.

Key Highlights of 2017 IDI

• Top 10 developing economies in 2017 IDI: Lithuania (1st), Azerbaijan (2nd), Hungary (3rd), Poland (4th), Romania (5th), Uruguay (6th), Latvia (7th), Panama (8th), Costa Rica (9th) and Chile (10th).
• Top 10 advance economies in 2017 IDI: Norway (1st), Luxembourg (2nd), Switzerland (3th), Iceland (4th) and Denmark (5th), (6th), Netherlands (7th), Australia (8th), New Zealand (9th) and Austria (10th).
• BRIC’s countries: Russia (13th), China (30th) and Brazil (30th).
• India’s neighbours: India’s many of the neighbouring nations are ahead in the rankings. China (15th), Nepal (27th), Bangladesh (36th) and Pakistan (52nd).
• India, with a score of only 3.38, ranks low among 79 developing economies, despite its growth in GDP per capita is among the top 10 and labour productivity growth has been strong.
• India scores well in terms of access to finance for business development and real economy investment.
• Reasons for India’s lower rank: India’s debt-to-GDP ratio is high, that raises some questions about the sustainability of government spending.
• India’s labour force participation rate is low, informal economy is large and many workers are vulnerable to employment situations with little room for social mobility.
• India needs more progressive tax system to raise capital for expenditures in infrastructure, health care, basic services and education,

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2017